1. Curriculum

Personal Development Journey: Global Leadership
Module I: INSPIRE
Leading sustainable transformation
In this course, different guest speakers will open your minds to the real sustainability challenges in this world. Prof. Jamie Anderson will teach you the basics on creativity and talk about how to take the lead to tackle these challenges in line with your own values and passions. Sustainability expert prof. Jan Beyne and his team will show you that sustainability is an imperative for any business. The real challenge is knowing how to transition from commitment to action, to successfully navigate the complexity of a sustainability transformation.
Technologies of Tomorrow & ethics
Technologies of tomorrow will give you a basic understanding of the key technological trends as part of a unique collaboration with IMEC ID lab – one of the best technology research centers in the world. Technologies such as Blockchain, Artificial intelligence, 5G, will be discussed and applied to your case while dealing also with the ethical questions around it. In addition, this course will also look into how you can protect your ideas and solutions.
Design Thinking
Part I: Identifying and researching problem spaces (3 ECTS)
Once you have spotted different interesting opportunities, you need to learn how to investigate and define the problem properly and find the right problem-solution fit. The design thinking methods will support you in this process.
Part II: Corporate Sustainability sprint (6 ECTS)
The Corporate Sustainability sprint is a three-week sprint to come up with innovative and sustainable business concepts for a corporate company. You will be able to apply your design thinking methods once more and collaborate in Milan with design students from Poli.Design (Politechnico di Milano).
Module II: ACT
Impact Strategies & Business Modeling
This course is structured to provide a deep understanding of the core strategic choices facing start-up and corporate innovators. It makes nascent start-up and corporate innovators aware of the core strategic choices early in a venture’s lifetime that can have substantial impact on the venture’s future development and growth. Instead of reacting on and fighting against forces that innovators cannot control, participants will learn to take matters into their own hands by following a proactive choice-centered approach, instrumental for developing a superior entrepreneurial strategy.
Corporate Innovation & Consultancy
This course will train you to become an innovation leader in a corporate or an innovation consultant. It will focus
on the specific context of corporates and their challenges to innovate.
Financial Planning & Raising Capital
The finance course teaches you to make a strong and solid financial plan that determines the funding gap. It will open your eyes for funding possibilities and will support you in the process of raising capital for sustainable solutions.
Module III: GROW
Digital Marketing & storytelling
This course acknowledges all forms of marketing - be it offline (e.g. billboard advertising, newspaper ads) or online (e.g. keywords advertising, social commerce). Yet, the course sets a strong focus on digital marketing because (i) marketing channels are intertwined in Omni channel strategies, (ii) digital marketing is offering strong potential for growth and (iii) traditional channels are enhanced through digital technology (e.g. a personalized billboard ad). This course also gives you insights into how you create a strong story and make impact with a very limited marketing budget.
Global Scaling
Once a problem-solution fit is created, entrepreneurs might want to create impact on a larger scale. The scaling process is a challenging one. We cover the foundations of scaling and look into growth opportunities for long term impact. You will also travel to Berlin to dive into the inspiring sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem. The goal of the trip is to identify growth opportunities, understand the circular ecosystem DNA and learn how to enter this landscape.
Master Project
You will be working on an in-company project (a venture building project) or on your own start-up for eight months. Whatever you choose, you will directly put theory into practice. Throughout these eight months you will be investigating and challenging the potential of business ideas by transforming them in real business cases, including market research, a product-market fit business model, a sound financial plan and ambitious go-to market strategy.